Nor let it be said that this kindly
dealing with a murderer is contrary to the ways of Heaven; for, amidst a
thousand other examples, did not Joshua, after the wall of Jericho lay
flat at the blast of a trumpet, save that vile woman Rahab at the same
time that he slew the young and the old, nay, the very infants, with the
edge of the sword? All which, though we are not, by token of our sins,
able to see the reason thereof, is doubtless consonant to a higher
justice--altogether unlike our goddess, who is represented as blind,
merely because she is supposed not to see a bribe when offered to her by
a litigant. So the penitence of Mr. Thomas Dodds might be a very dear
affair after all, in so much as terror is a condition of the soul which,
of all we are doomed to experience, is the most difficult to bear,
especially if it is a terror of divine wrath. On his return to his house
in the evening, he found that Mrs. Mary had taken him at his word and
decamped, but not without providing herself with as good a share of the
"goods in communion" as she could, perhaps, at two or three returns,
carry off. So was she like Zebulun in all save her righteousness, for
she "rejoiced in her going out;" nay, she had some reason, for she had
discovered that in a secret drawer of an old cabinet there was a pose of
gold collected by the industrious hands of Mrs.
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